


Quasimodo's Firefly

by Celestos (Seruspica)



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! GX
Genre: Drabble, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-14
Updated: 2016-01-14
Packaged: 2018-05-13 21:09:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5717230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seruspica/pseuds/Celestos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Short drabble, based on a request (sort of). There's no more light left, but there's that thing they call love, and with it, pain. Implied onesided Anikishipping, Spiritshipping.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Quasimodo's Firefly

**Author's Note:**

  * For [imperfectPacifist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/imperfectPacifist/gifts).



> I prefer Spiritshipping platonically, but I have to experiment sometimes - and I struggle to think of romantic Spiritshipping without unrequited Anikishipping. This hurt, in a way.
> 
> I got a request for the prompt 'things you said under the stars and in the grass' and I went off-track. I would have written something more Aniki-ish as you asked, but I have a good reason.
> 
> Set between GX eps. 136-7.

***

In a world so dark that when countless days have passed, but he has yet to see the sun rise, it is a miracle that there are still stars.

When he was still a child - he can’t call himself one now - he remembered the nights he and his parents and brother would spend camping out in the wilds. He’d been scared of the woods since he’d heard stories of tigers and bears in the dark, but he recalled what his mother had said: with their torches and fires, nothing could touch them, as long as they were a family, and loved one another.

He remembers Ryo’s face, lit up a faint gold by the fire, with a small, joyful smile, just as bright as the flames in the dark. He’d smiled a lot more in those times, when they all still held hands and laughed. He remembered the fireflies they’d tried to catch, and the one he’d killed with a clumsy grab. Ryo had been perfect, and caught one in his hand.

He misses the light of the fireflies. He has no axe, either, to cut wood for a fire. The few twigs he’d tried gather from the floor had been damp, some dappled with an unfamiliar fungus. He’d felt ill looking at the wastes of what lay on the ground.

It’s cold. His breath is white smoke; it’s too cold. He’s sick and this is all wrong.

He thought he’d seen fireflies while trying to find shelter; all the golden lights had only been strange, beastly eyes that he’d run away from. He knows it’s not the only thing he’s run from: he runs from everything, whether he feels bad about it or not, because it’s his nature.

Nature’s a wreck, he thinks. _Golden lights don’t bring hope and happiness. Not any more._

He’d seen some the day before, but those golden lights had not been fireflies at all.

He sighs as he pushes the memory away, but can’t help but wonder and if what he’s inhaling in the air is _death._

Light is gone. _Love dies, too._

Love doesn’t save anyone, he knows. He’d seen _that thing they call love_ , another light, in someone’s eyes. Love was supposed to be pleasant, love was meant to be beautiful, but love had destroyed him; driven him to commit the worst crime, to leave the ones who had always been by his side.

And for what? For _that thing they call love?_

Love isn’t enough to save anything. _That thing_ doesn’t save.

He wonders if it’s why he feels so hollow himself when he thinks of brown hair and brown eyes and _love._

He tries to think of the morning that he’s sure will come sometime, but his mind is drawn back to the image of the same golden light. This time, it’s more than cinders and dust; further back, when he was still a child a few weeks ago, those small things called fireflies.

Fireflies dance in swarms, in groups, in pairs. They’d been like fireflies once, all together, all of them bright and burning, trying to out-glow one another, yet still being together, still fighting back the darkness that was all around them.

He knows he’s suffered in silence. He’d held out his hand, but in the end, his light hadn’t been strong enough. The burden is his, and he’ll suffer with it. He’ll suffer for _that thing they call love._

A small bug that had probably glowed once lay dead by his feet.


End file.
